Some of you may be new to our blog so we thought it might be nice to give everyone an over view of how we started this journey. This summer our friends said that they were hosting an orphan from Eastern Europe. This was something that we had never heard of before but we found it a very interesting program. Linda and our kids were able to go roller skating and get to meet their guest. After their hosting was over Linda and I said that one day we would love to do it however, a laundry list of thing had to be completed before we would take part in the program. As you probably guessed our list of things started to get checked off one by one. The end of October we narrowed the list of available children down to three boys. We spent some time praying about which of the three we would choose. After praying about it and speaking with our coordinator we selected one of the three boys we were praying about.
Part of the requirements of hosting is to complete a mandatory training. The training was a great time. We met some absolutely amazing people that were in the same situation that we were. Training was over and a few short weeks later we found ourselves standing with a hand full of other families waiting in the St. Louis airport. I remember the butterflies in my stomach as we eagerly awaited his arrival. One of the goals of the hosting program is to find the children that were being hosted a forever family. With that goal in mind, we decided that we were going to start this blog. We signed up to host, with the mind set of just hosting and then advocating to find his forever. We did not know that we would be the family that we were looking for. Through this journey we have learned a lot about ourselves and a lot about our family. We were able to share many fun and exciting things while he was here, from bowling to an Illini Basketball game and everything in between. Normally the Christmas hosting is 4 weeks. 5 days before he was supposed to go back he got the Chicken pox, which caused him to get to stay another week with us. That week was amazing because we were able to care for him in his time of need.
Putting him back on the plane to go back to L@tvia was one of the hardest things we have ever had to. At that point we did not know if he was available for international adoption or not. We had to wait two more week after he left before we found out for sure. Since finding out we have finished our Home Study process, and are currently waiting for immigration approval. Our dossier is in country, and currently being translated as we await the approval letter form immigration.
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